Cersei's double-cross was hardly a surprise, and certainly speaks to the shortsightedness of her character. After some of her more cunning moments, it was good to see her fall back to familiar habits. As devious as she's always been, she also has a habit of overlooking a detail and causing more problems. I think we were all waiting to see what Jamie's breaking point would be. Looks like he's going to have to break another oath.

Littlefinger's demise did catch me off guard. I couldn't shake the feeling that he'd outlast everyone, but I thought it was great how his manipulation finally caught up to him, at the hands of his own apprentice. Bran's abilities were finally put to good use, too. Very satisfying; there are bigger threats than the game he was playing, now.

Another big reveal with Jon...that is to say, Aegon. Kinda bad timing, given what's going down with him and Dany at present!

the hound telling the mountain to basically get fucked was awesome. only 6 episodes left for us to finally get to see them go at it.

as with the rest of the season last night brought us a bunch more reunions and i was excited for each one. the one thing that caught me off guard simply because i never thought about it was jon snow arriving at kings landing. i knew he had never been there before but i just never actually thought about it. was another cool scene.

the littlefinger scene i figured out the second sansa used the word betrayal. second she said that i turned to my wife and said "littlefinger is dead". i loved the emotionless was arya offed him though.

the reveal of course is what we have been waiting for but i love that the mentioned him as being the true heir to the throne. i dont think they say that without it coming up as a point of conflict in season 7.

nice to see jamie on the right side of things and of course the final scene was amazing

such a good episode with so little action. the character games have always made GoT what it is imo and i loved seeing these character verbally go at it again

the cersi thing was no surprise. there was zero chance she was actually going to help them in anyway

The Sandor/Brienne, Bronn/Tyrion/Pod, Lannister, and Clegane reunions in this episode were more enjoyable than the Stark reunion. Even Sam and Bran seeing each other again had a more memorable exchange with Bran showing the letter to Sam.

Andrew wrote:Looks like he's going to have to break another oath.

Good catch. I was wondering why Jamie was so mad at Cersei lying (and by association with her, him also breaking his word) about providing Lannister troops to Daenerys. Reminded me that the Kingslayer is still deeply affected with breaking his oath, guess that bath time with Brienne for character development finally paid off.

Cersei with the 3 strikes that broke Jamie: Forcing him to break his word (again). Cersei emasculating Jamie by doing military strategy with Euron; no longer a great swordsman with just one hand, being a commander was Jamie's thing to maintain his pride and Cersei took that away from him.Threatening to kill Jamie.

Thought that last one is a good enough reason for Jamie to ditch Cersei's crazy ass.

He has no reason to trust or support Cersei, either. I think those theories are barking up the wrong tree.

Maybe he's concerned about how the alliance will play out, and whether the Northern lords will go along with it. Maybe he's worried about losing influence, especially with a lot of his plans going awry. Maybe he's simply (rightfully) uneasy about the agreement with Cersei, and (correctly) thinking she'll betray them.

the theon scene was funny because as they were fighting i told my wife that i bet he gets kicked in the balls and just stare at the guy.

i have loved this season but if i had one complaint it would be that the show has become far more predictable now that it has gone beyond the books. it seems to now be following standard tv/movie tropes.

the entire story in winterfell was told in a horrible way just to make the littlefinger scene seem like a surprise which to me made it obvious.

Sauru wrote:i have loved this season but if i had one complaint it would be that the show has become far more predictable now that it has gone beyond the books. it seems to now be following standard tv/movie tropes.

I'd say Littlefinger and Olenna were major deaths. I'd also argue that the tendency for main characters to drop like flies, especially in the last two episodes of the season, was a predictable pattern in and of itself. Sometimes not having a twist works as a twist in its own right. The "good guys" still suffered a lot of setbacks, and there are still a lot of problems, what with trying to keep the Northern lords unified and The Wall collapsing.

Looks like I worded that poorly. No major deaths for the good guys, though being the good guy is somewhat subjective. But yeah, I forgot about Olenna. Too bad for the Tyrells, they never really had a significant impact on the story aside from killing Joffrey.

The good guys (or as is often said, what passes for the good guys in this universe) have suffered major losses in pretty much every season so far, so that in itself was becoming predictable. Season 7 was a bit of a reprieve for them, but Winter is here, and the story isn't done yet.

for me its not a matter of "no one dying" as it is "people not dying in situations where they would surely die". for example tormund should be dead. he never should have made it to the season finale. bronn should be dead and jamie too. grey worm? yeah him and the rest of his army should be dead. over all much of what happened was predictable simple because we now have tv writers calling the shots and they are falling back on what has worked in the past.

still this was one of my favorite seasons and i wish it had a full 10- episodes as all these reunions deserved more scene time. i have waited for ever for the stark children to come together and it all felt rushed this season. i expect more reunions next season but with only 6 episodes and a shit ton of content to resolve i expect all the reunions to be very short scenes.

Sauru wrote:for me its not a matter of "no one dying" as it is "people not dying in situations where they would surely die". for example tormund should be dead. he never should have made it to the season finale. bronn should be dead and jamie too. grey worm? yeah him and the rest of his army should be dead. over all much of what happened was predictable simple because we now have tv writers calling the shots and they are falling back on what has worked in the past.

That's fair. I still say that routinely offing main characters is also predictable in its own way though, and the deaths should be meaningful. To the credit of the show and the books, I think that's mostly been the case.

I would probably agree in regards to Tormund, because he's more or less served his purpose at this point. Killing him would also make it more difficult for Jon to keep unity with the free folk, which would be a good complication for the narrative to have. As far as Grey Worm is concerned though, I disagree there. They had an easy victory because of Jaime's plan with Casterly Rock. After that, they were stuck waiting for new orders and opportunity, which came when Dany roasted the Lannister army. Unlike Tormund, he wasn't put in a situation where it was highly unlikely that an important character wouldn't die.

There's still a story arc with Jaime defecting from Cersei, so I don't mind that he survived. We also got a really good fakeout there. Bronn...I'm not sure, I could go either way on that one. A big part of his character is that he's a survivor, picking his spots and getting out of scrapes. I think it's important that there's a token somewhat good/neutral character on the bad side, as it preserves the "no side is totally good or bad" aspect. I also come back to the deaths of well-established characters needing to be meaningful and handled correctly. The timing has to be right. At the end of the day, give or take a character like Tormund, I think it just comes down to timing. Perhaps it might be different if the season had the regular ten episodes.

The Season 6 finale proved that even when going beyond the books, D&D are willing to make big changes and kill off major characters. They did the same with Shireen, and Stannis for that matter, because they haven't been killed in the books yet. Book fans complained, but killing them off wasn't outside the nature of the books. I think it's just the way it worked out with Season 7, and while there may be some missed opportunities, I think Season 8 is going to change that.

Lamrock wrote:I could see the Jon Targaryan epiphany being the last scene of the season. Right after Jon beds his aunt for the first time..

I was pretty close, though I wasn't exactly going out on a limb there...

Season finale was pretty good. Really enjoyed all the character reunions, and Viserion taking down the wall was a great way to kick off the long hype cycle. Sad to think that Paul George will be getting ready for his first post-season run with the Lakers by the team next season airs.

I think it's really lazy writing to omit certain parts of conversations. Many of the show's plot twists stem from misleading narration. It's terrible storytelling. If you're going to omit half of a conversation, have it be from the POV from someone who has to leave halfway through it. Otherwise it's just confusing and annoying.

As glad as I am that Sansa didn't try to have Arya killed, it's frustrating to see how stupid Littlefinger was this season, after being arguably the show's best manipulator for so long. As much of a villain as he was, it was kind of lame to see him go down with such a two-bit plot.

Apparently there are deleted scenes that fill in the gaps. Another drawback of the abbreviated season; even with longer episodes, stuff is still cut for time.

Not to say the Littlefinger plot couldn't have been done differently or better, but I think it's a tangled web situation. He's played multiple people and sides for too long, and also shown his hand to Sansa, teaching her too well. He's gotten away with a lot at this point, so he's cocky. He feels untouchable, and that's caught up to him, as has loyalty when you think about it. He taught Sansa the game, but whereas he has no loyalty except to himself, she obviously does still feel familial loyalty. He finally came up against someone who'd learned his tricks and how to employ those tricks themselves, but still had a strong sense of loyalty in a way that wasn't honour before reason. He's not used to that, and it did him in.